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Does Nail Art Prove That Anything Can Be A Canvas for Artist Expression?
>> MIKE: Here’s an idea: Nail art proves that anything can be a canvas for artistic expression. theme I’m sorry, wait, nail art? Like, on your nails, nail art? beep yeah, nail art! Nail art ranges from: Wow, that probably took a while, to Oh, my God. What, on your nails? Get out of town. If your like me, you probably have some pretty standard assumptions about painting nails. It’s a simple, delicate, largely femine activity which places a premium on neatness. It’s not really technique intensive or thematic. In short, it’s not art, it’s craft. And the battle between these two ideas goes back about as far as the idea of art iself. Nope, further. Even further. Nope, keep, keep going. Oh, no, that’s too far. Ancient Greeks used the word techne to describe creative persuits which are functional. You know, things like blacksmithing, cigarrolling and putting together Swedish furniture. I hate you. Sure, they’re creative, but they don’t express bigger ideas. And they don’t concern themselves with things like ethics, politics or meaning. These more lofty subjects are tackled by artworks which contain a sort of poetry, or poesis, as it was called back in the day. The point being any not about serious ideas is a craft. And we all know, painting on your nails... seriously not serious. Unless. What if the idea expressed by the craft is the extreme attention to detail, the devotion to technique? To be fair, isn’t nail art taking the painting of nails well beyond any kind of function and bringing it a level of artistry and even maybe beauty? In a way, this makes nailart a lot like fashion. Most clothing design has a practical, craftlike nature, but the goal of much high fashion is not practical at all. I would buy that. The goal is to express, invoke and inspire. And in doing so, fashion can cross that techne/poesis boarder. This artfulness comes when designers rethink all of the details. What if pants didn’t have two legs? And who says hats need to be round? And you know what, symetry isn’t that cool to begin with. Fashion superhero Karl Lagerfeld said that fashion doesn’t have to prove that it’s serious. It is the proof that intelligent frivolity can be something creative and positive. In nail art, just like in fashion, just like in art art, you can be your most free when you assume zilch about your artform and allow yourself to just go nuts. With this attitude you begin to see yarn as a drawing medium, chocolate as a sculptural material and fingernails as teeny, little canvases ready to express those big ideas. German philosopher Martin Heidegger described poesis as a kind of bringing forth. A moment where the stuff that makes up the artwork, the metal, or pixels, or fingernails or whatever, becomes more than the sum of its parts. And you have a realization, a moment. singing Nail art’s strength is that it’s a artform that exists on people, out in the world. It’s this context, crafty, quotidian, personal, which makes it special and more than a little surprising because we’re used to seeing this: …. But when you see this: ... , you’re all like, Er. Mah. Gerd. child laughter Because that is some poesis up in here. What do you guys think? When does craft become art? Let us know in the comments and if you like us, you should subscribe and tell your mom to tell her book club about us and to subscribe. Please subscribe. I just flew in from VidCon and boy, is my sunburn tired. I had an amazing weekend where I got to hang out with some of my favorite people from YouTube: John and Hank Green, Vsauce, MinutePhysics, Veritasium, Destin from Smarter Every Day, Brady from Numberphile, Vihart from Khan Academy, Forrest from Know Your Meme, all people who I have huge nerd crushes on. I also got to meet a ton of you guys which was so much fun. Let’s do it again sometime. And I got to do an interview with our PBS bros National Film Society. We’ll put a link in the description so you can check it out, they are very charming. There were so many opinions about our music genres episode. Let’s see what you guys had to say: Rookie8254 makes a really awesome comparison between music genres and a broken pencil eraser. It’s actually really good, I might use that, can I use that? threenoms3 makes the point that music genres aren’t helpful because they don’t tell you whether or not music is good. Maybe we should just make two music genres: good and bad. I’m sure we could all come to an agreement about what goes where. 2bitgirly007 makes explicit that genres help people feel comfortable. Some genres make me feel uncomfortable, like polka. staticseven187 points out that the homogenization of genres might be caused by the homogenization of music making tools. In some circles I think that’s called technological determinism. And I’m sure someone has a Ph.D. in it. aRockandRollNerd makes a very convincing argument for the difference between Sci-Fi writing and magical realism. I am very convinced. DannoHung makes a really interesting point that genre might just be a lacking facility of language and that we should come up with better ways to describe music. I kind of agree, really that’s pretty smart. theme Category:English Category:Complete